Happy Friday the 13th!

Happy Friday the 13th! Hope it hasn’t been too unlucky for anyone.

I’ve had a lot of Death Cab for Cutie stuck in my head lately, and I have no idea why because I haven’t listened to them in awhile. Incidentally, they wrote a single for the second Twilight saga movie, New Moon, called “Meet Me On the Equinox.” Did I get it? Duhhh! It’s a decent song, and although I am not necessarily a Twilight fan, I do have to admit the first movie had a fairly good soundtrack, what with their little nod to Stephenie Meyer’s love of Muse with the single, “Super-Massive Black Hole” in the vampire baseball scene.

Side-note: Stephenie Meyer directly influenced my interest in Muse, as they are her favorite band and she credited them for their inspiration in all of her Twilight novels. (And yes, I have read them all; I went through quite an intense vampire-romance phase in high school. I am glad to say I have left those days behind. I am no longer really a fan of the novels, though I can’t deny I loved them when I was seventeen.)

About 3 years ago, I was introduced to Death Cab for Cutie quite by chance. Their album Transatlanticism (2003) was given to me by a friend, and it remains my favorite of their albums (though, yes, I have given 3 of their other albums proper listens.) They are clever, I’ll give them that—but not really catchy. You have to pay close attention to their lyrics, and sometimes that’s what I love about their songs, but sometimes Death Cab can be a little too sentimental and intense for my taste. I love Ben Gibbard’s soft, breathy voice, but I have to be in the right mood for it. (Fun Fact: Ben Gibbard is also the lead singer of The Postal Service and—allegedly—married to my beloved, favorite American actress Zooey Deschanel.) In any event, although Death Cab do not make my Top 5, they make it into the perimeter of the Top 10, simply because of my love for Transatlanticism.

Anyway…I’m getting severely off-topic here. I’m not very focused today, sorry. The point is that basically my love of Death Cab = Transatlanticism only. If you like their other albums better, then by all means tell me to go re-listen. But some bands just have that One Good Album, just like some authors just have that One Good Book, and for me it’s Transatlanticism. My three favorites on the album are “Expo ’86,” “Transatlanticism,” and “Passenger Seat.” I love every song on the album, actually, but those are the ones that have remained my unchangeable favorites. Transatlanticism, as with most of Death Cab’s albums, is a compilation of tiny slices of life, which is what makes the songs so beautiful. They tell a story, but subtly, so that you have to interpret the meaning in your own way. My love of “Expo ’86” is a bit personal in that way because it pretty much sums up my love life; it is one of those songs that I would consider partially biographical, which is ironic because I fell in love with the song long before I’d ever fallen in love for real. My favorite bit is:

“Sometimes it seems that I don’t have the skills to recollect
The twists and turns of plot that turned us from lovers to friends;
I’m thinking I should take that volume back up off the shelf
And crack its weary spine and read to help remind myself.”

It’s fantastic, but love really is like a story, and you do have to go over the plot of your love in retrospect to see where it was flawed, because you can’t see what’s wrong when you’re in it. And then there is this bit at the end that always gets me:

“I am waiting for something to go wrong,
I am waiting for familiar resolve
I am waiting for another repeat,
Another diet fed by crippling defeat.
And I am waiting for that sense of relief,
I am waiting for you to flee the scene
As if you held in your hand the smoking gun
And on the floor lay the one you said you loved.”

Love it! That last line always kills me. (Haha.) As for the title track, “Transatlanticism,” there is this kind of lulling background rhythm to it that reminds me of that swaying motion you feel on a train. (In fact, on a recent train trip, I listened to it and it was very peaceful and comforting.) It’s a very beautiful song, very rich in imagery, that to me seems to be about a great flood (or possibly the Great Flood from the Bible or legends) but where people are grateful for this influx of water, for some reason, when it goes, “The people were overjoyed; they took to their boats / I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.” But the trans-Atlantic part comes in when he sings,

“The rhythm of my footsteps
Crossing flatlands to your door
Have been silenced forevermore.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no, I need you so much closer.”

And although I’ve always loved the song, I never really understood that long-distance desperation until last spring when I spent quite a bit of time on the other side of the Atlantic from everyone I love. And I discovered that it really was “quite simply much too far for me to row,” and I needed certain people “so much closer,” at times. In fact I couldn’t even listen to “Transatlanticism” when I was in England; I refused, because it hurt too much. And that’s another reason why the album is so special to me—it was given to me in 2006, but I never understood those songs until 2008 and 2009, when I was older and more mature, so they almost foreshadowed certain events in my future.

And, last but not least, my love for “Passenger Seat” is personal, as well. It’s basically about being driven home on some dark night, which reminds me of all the times I’ve ridden shotgun with one or another of my best friends. (Which has been quite often, because I didn’t get my full license until this past summer.) And “Passenger Seat” gathers up that feeling, but not in a “Woo-it’s-a-fun-night-let’s party” kind of way, but rather with a slow, gentle, sentimental little melody:

“I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between
Shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat
As you are driving me home.
‘Do they collide?’
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash,
The world doesn’t matter.”

I’ve had moments like that; moments that are perhaps some of the best in my life. For me, it’s not always the destination of a drive that is the most fun, it’s the driving itself. And as much as I love driving, you notice more from the passenger seat because you can pay better attention to the person you’re with and what’s around you.

So, there you have a taste of Death Cab for Cutie (albeit maybe a little too in-depth.) I hope you enjoy their other albums, as well, as I really do wish that I liked them as much as Transatlanticism.

Party it up for Friday the 13th! (’Cause I sure am!)

Have a great weekend,
Emily Noel

Disclaimer: All re-printed lyrics copyright of Death Cab for Cutie.